GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

How Japan Got Baseball

Tolga Ozyurtcu

Board of Contributors

Apr 3, 2017 | 09:15 GMT

In what must be one of the earliest examples of the "glocalization" of culture, the Japanese were quick not just to embrace baseball, but to make it their own.

(KIYOSHI OTA/Getty Images)

Editor's Note:

This column is written by Stratfor contributors, a diverse group of thinkers whose expertise inspires rigorous and innovative thought. Their opinions are their own and serve to complement and even challenge our beliefs. We welcome that challenge, and we hope our readers do too.

How did Japan become a standard bearer for the most American of sports? This was actually one of the first questions that emerged when we began entertaining the idea of a column dedicated to the geopolitics of sports -- a semi-joke that became a recurring quip, encapsulating the sort of questions and issues we could tackle in this space: "You know, how did Japan get baseball? That sort of thing." The answer to this question -- at least the brief version I can offer here -- is an exemplary tale of how ideas travel across cultures, take root and find a life of their own....

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